Yeah, it doesn't surprise me.
When I heard the GBS staff say in the Talis interview that she had no
opinion and nothing to say about whether GBS terms of service allowed
cover usage, and had no reason to think that the terms of service denied
it.... I figured, hey, just a matter of time until someone corrects
that record.
So sad.
So what do we need to do to create a free source of covers? Tim, what
happened to your coverthing plan that you were enticing us with for a while?
Jonathan
Tim Spalding wrote:
> I just posted something important about the GBS API on the Thingology blog:
> http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2008/06/covers-from-google-too-good-to-be-true.php
>
> Basically, I've been told that I was wrong to promote the use of GBS
> for covers in an OPAC, that the covers were licensed from a cover
> supplierâ€”ten guesses!â€”and should not have allowed this, and that the
> new GBS API terms of service put the kibosh on the use I promoted.
>
> I'm a big proponent of free covers. I think selling covers is going to
> go away soon. But I do think it's important to respect terms, when
> they are legal. And personally, I'm very uncertain what's allowed and
> what's not.
>
> And I would like to get the heck out of the issue, thank you very much!
>
> Tim
>
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Digital Services Software Engineer
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu